7 Ways to Make 2017 Your Best Year for Waste Reduction Week

Every year across Canada, more than 1.5 BILLION dollars are spent just to dispose of garbage. With over 10,000 landfill sites in the country already (Environment Canada), it’s more important than ever to promote a successful Waste Reduction Week that will hopefully encourage your residents to divert more waste for the rest of the year.

With this year’s Waste Reduction Week coming up on Oct 16th to 22nd 2017, here are 7 impactful ways to help you make this year the best one yet:

1. Win-Win Contests

• Perform random inspections of blue carts/bins during the week – and those households sorted correctly can be entered to win a gift card or a local prize, such as free groceries.

• Designate certain locations around the city (such as parks, school campuses) and those caught using a reusable water bottle or mug have a chance to win a prize.

• Host a contest related to your key Waste Reduction Week message. For example, if one of your messages is to keep e-waste out of the landfill, then challenge your residents and schools to bring in as many old mobile devices and accessories as possible. The person and/or school that brings in the most devices wins a prize.

If you’re looking for a cell phone drop-off program for your city, Recycle My Cell is Canada’s free recycling program for mobile devices and accessories.

2. Give a Tip of the Day

People are bombarded with information all the time. So, focus on one important tip – something you want them to do – each day, or even one message for the entire week and just drive it home.

Topics can revolve around paper towels, disposable coffee pods, food waste, produce bags, fixing broken items, or as simple as choosing ice cream cones over cups and spoons.

• Some great ideas for tip of the day, challenges, and shareable stories can be found in this PDF (click here) by the Recycling Council of British Columbia.

• The City of London, Ontario previously tied point 1 and 2 together for one of their Waste Reduction initiatives. Click here to see their poster. 

3. “The children are our future” – So Get Them Involved!

Ensure that students from K-12 are a big target of your Waste Reduction Week campaigns.

How can you target them?

• Speak at local schools. Talk about the schools’ waste reduction initiatives and events planned for Waste Reduction Week.

• Share educational videos with students. Here’s a collection of some great videos on WRW Canada’s website.

• Develop programs and/or activities for teachers to implement in their classrooms.

This can be creating recycled crafts, creating a recycling board for the classroom (you can supply them with the correct information and offer to check), or have students help implement and manage a recycling/composting program in the school.

• Help them host a waste-free lunch for the week challenge.

According to the Recycling Council of Ontario, the average student’s lunch creates about 30 kg of waste per year! This means that over the course of the year, the average Canadian school can produce over 8,500 kg of waste JUST from student lunches.

As DJ, a science teacher at Glenelg School in Abu Dhabi, puts it:

“It’s never too early to educate students on the benefits of recycling. The younger you start, the more natural it becomes and eventually it is just second nature.”

4. Involve Your Residents in the Recycling Process

Offer free tours of your Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) if possible. You can also offer free shuttle buses from schools to encourage students to participate. This encourages residents to take more accountability for what they throw into the garbage instead of an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality.

If you’re unable to offer a tour of your MRF, there’s an option to take a virtual tour through this website.

5. Workshops Work

There’s nothing quite like being there in-person, along with other like-minded individuals, learning how to do something from an expert. So, host some workshops for your residents:

• Composting demonstration (you can provide free worms as an incentive and provide personalized recommendations on a compost system best for each attendee)
• Repair workshops
• Waste free living

6. Let Your Residents Help Spread Your Message

The more people and channels you use to spread your message, the bigger the reach and impact you’ll have in your municipality. Free ways you can do this include:

• Provide residents with materials they can bring to their work place, schools, neighbours, and more. This can include downloadable posters, flyers, e-postcards, and other ads.

• Post shareable content on social media.

• Encourage residents to tweet tips and/or why they recycle using a specific hashtag for your municipality. The hashtag should be short, memorable and unique. You and any resident will be able to see all tips and posts tagged with that unique hashtag.

• Get your message straight to your residents’ smartphone using Recycle Coach’s real-time notification system.

7. Say YES to Fun and Social Activities

Show that Waste Reduction Week can be fun for the whole family:

• Screen movies/videos related to waste reduction at a local theatre, such as a library theatre or a make-shift theatre at city hall. Good titles include Just Eat It (a 75-minute documentary film about food waste and food rescue by Peg Leg Films) and Minimalism (a documentary about how your life might be better with less).

• Host a city-wide garage sale to encourage reusing items instead of throwing it away.
• Get on social media – in a fun, educational way. Invite your residents to use Recycle Coach’s “What Goes Where?” chatbot right from Facebook!

No downloads are required to use it and there’s no additional work for you either. Residents will simply message Recycle Coach on Facebook and ask the bot how to dispose of any item. Contact us to learn how you can customize the search results for your specific municipality.